This North Carolina Highlands wedding comes from the always amazing Kyle Hale. Greg and Larke went for a cozy lodge wedding with beautiful handmade details crafted to tell their story and personalize their wedding. Beautiful bride Larke knocked her wedding day vision out of the park, with touches of burlap, sparklers, and paper-wrapped yummies for her guests!

From the bride, Larke: With Greg and I living in two different states during our engagement and our friends and family spread all over the map, a destination wedding made the most sense for us! We wanted to keep things simple and relaxed — just a good time with our closest friends and family. Once we found the Old Edwards Inn, we knew a mountain getaway would be the perfect!

We were going for sweet, simple, laid back, rustic, elegant, cozy, and intimate! We kept the color scheme neutral — nothing too bright to distract from the beautiful surroundings.

One of our top priorities was to provide our guests with some fantastic food! With the help of Old Edwards Inn’s Chef Johannes Klapdohr, we created an “elegant southern” dinner menu that fancied up some of our favorite comfort foods. Guests were able to fill up their plates with fried green tomatoes with Cajun mayonnaise, macaroni and cheese flavored with white truffle oil, shrimp and grits, pecan-crusted chicken atop delicious braised collard greens, and so much more! For dessert, we served our wedding cake–vanilla with a layer of strawberries and buttercream icing–along with chocolate and vanilla cupcakes that had surprise chocolate mousse and creme brule fillings inside. In addition to all that delicious food, guests were able to stay warm and cozy, thanks to the Hot Beverage Bar that featured flavored coffees and hot chocolates to go along with yummy toppings like vanilla-maple whipped cream, house-made marshmallows, chocolate-covered peppermint sticks, red hots, and chocolate and caramel sauces. I could just go on and on about the food… it was amazing!

It was also important to make the day personal to us.The favors we gave out at the reception were especially meaningful to me. I knew I wanted to honor my Grandmother in some way as she was a huge part of my life and I just couldn’t think of a better way than to showcase her delicious poundcake! A HUGE thank you to our dear friends, Jimmy and Dawn, for baking the adorable miniature poundcakes for each of our guests! Greg and I met and fell in love during our time at Auburn University, so we also made sure to include our alma mater in our special day. We made chocolates in the shape of the AU logo and toasted with Auburn’s famous Toomer’s Lemonade. Our guests even sent us off with a loud and proud “War Eagle” battle cry as we left the reception!

Other DIY projects included our guestbook, table numbers, and welcome baskets filled with homemade treats. Also, a lot of the candleholders, picture frames, and other decorations we used were things that my Mom and I collected on various shopping trips together throughout my engagement — Greg and I actually have these decorations scattered around our new place now. It’s nice to be able to look around our home and see little reminders of our special day!